Restoring Sansui SP 35s

noirwest

Member
I bought a pair of speakers from an out of work musician who, at the last moment remembered that he had another set of old speakers in the basement and drug out these Sansuis. Normally I would have taken a pass but he was really broke and wasn't asking a whole lot for them so I figured it a good cause and could use the sturdy little beasts for speaker stands if nothing else. The aluminum coated mylar dustcaps are completely trashed on them and I'm wondering if a regular aluminum cap will be a suitable replacement or do I need to track down original parts?
 
Hey Noirwest,

Welcome to AK! You're going to want to replace the woofers with ones that have intact dust caps, that's just how that goes. And of course the creaky, old electrolytic caps will need to be replaced. This and restoring the cosmetics may or may not deter your inspiration. They won't be worth your time and money if you're looking to flip 'em. But it sounds like a fun project to keep your wandering hands from causing trouble. Or like you said, repurpose them for something else. Which is probably where I'd end up. If nothing else, those older Sansui cabinets were built to withstand a direct nuclear blast. I would suggest grabbing some chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk, and sit down with them for a while. They'll tell you what the scoop is, you just need to listen.

Biggles
 
These were my favourite ever small speakers - worth a restore. The bass drivers are sturdy and sound great. If at all possible, I would look at keeping all the original drivers if they all work OK. Are the horn tweeters working alright?
 
These were my favourite ever small speakers - worth a restore. The bass drivers are sturdy and sound great. If at all possible, I would look at keeping all the original drivers if they all work OK. Are the horn tweeters working alright?
Not sure we're on the same speaker here. Mine is a two way with a small tweeter behind a wire mesh girll. No horn and on several boards I've read people saying that they disconnected their tweeters and went with the larger, mid/woofer that covered a remarkable range of mhz. But only if the shiny silver dust cone wasn't all pushed in.
 
IMHO, restore them. Hopefully the lattice grills are intact. I have a pair of 70's-something SP-50's with excellent build-quality, They are ported 2-ways that sound great, but definitely need a subwoofer for help.
ETA- mine have the small horn tweets. I guess the intact lattice grills and 70's-red/orange grill clothe protected the siver dustcaps from fingers.
I am sure there are links on the net about Sansui speakers, will see if I have them when I get back to a real computer.
 
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IMHO, restore them. Hopefully the lattice grills are intact. I have a pair of 70's-something SP-50's with excellent build-quality, They are ported 2-ways that sound great, but definitely need a subwoofer for help.
ETA- mine have the small horn tweets. I guess the intact lattice grills and 70's-red/orange grill clothe protected the siver dustcaps from fingers.
I am sure there are links on the net about Sansui speakers, will see if I have them when I get back to a real computer.

I wish. He couldn't find the grills and the SP-3500s that I went there to buy were in mint condition except that he had removed the dispersal louvers from the horns and couldn't find those, either.I've found quite a few links, found the missing louvers right away but hardly anything for the 35s except for intact sets of speakers for sale.
 
The dust cap doesn't really do all that much on a woofer, except to keep dust out of the voice coil gap. I would think any similarly sized dust cap would work, preferably one the same color if you can find it. I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble (and expense) of replacing the entire woofer just because the dust cap was crunched. Unless the speakers are quite valuable.
 
I'm not sure of the correct terminology but I know that my calling it a, "woofer" wasn't correct. It is that but is also the mid and to some extent the tweeter as well. On this board there's a few people who, when talking about this speaker, suggest disconnecting the speaker installed as the tweeter as it's harsh junk and using the multitalented, "woofer" by itself. The Sansui people say the dustcap is aluminized mylar and apparently plays a larger role than the usual dust cap. A plastic or plain aluminum cap won't work. It's an odd little beast.
 
I had a pair a few years back. Mine were in fair shape and worked fine, but soundwise, they are nothing special. I would not bother to restore them unless it is an easy and cheap project.
 
Oh, it's a woofer all right. I decided to look it up. 20 cm (8") is no slouch for a woofer.

Here's some fun bad translation from a Japanese web page:

"The 2 way speaker system developed based on the design concept which thought Hearing impression in the listening room as important.

"A 20cm cone type unit is adopted as low-pass. This unit is developed considering canceling the elongation to super-low-pass one, the improvement in a dumping, and the dent of a mid range peculiar to two ways as a focal point.

"A 1.9cm dome shape unit is adopted as the high region. The dome part serves as a soft dome shape which used the special fiber, and has realized the tone quality which it is soft and is easy to hear it."
I understand most of it, including 'the dent of a midrange' which probably refers to a depressed midrange in the area of the crossover frequency, what we usually call 'midrange suck-out' when talking about two-way speakers like the EPI, Genesis etc.

But I'm still scratching my head over 'improvement in a dumping.' :rflmao::idea:
 
Not much to look at, really, and without the grills...._DSC1065.JPG _DSC1069.JPG _DSC1065.JPG _DSC1069.JPGI was hoping to use them for bookshelves and figured they would be typically Sansui efficient making them good low volume units.
 
I asked this question on a different thread about a different Sansui speaker but it's very old and probably won't get seen anytime soon, so, hoping I'm not bending a rule here - these Sansui's have some sort of impregnated cloth surrounds that are probably eternal. Unfortunately the glue that holds them to the cones, ehh - not so much. What kind of glue should I use to rejoin the two of them?
 
Hmm, cloth surround to paper cone? I'm going to guess that a very common white glue often used for gluing new surrounds to paper cones will work just fine: Aleen's Tacky Glue. Pretty much like Elmers just a little thicker. You can find it at craft stores.
 
The dust cap doesn't really do all that much on a woofer, except to keep dust out of the voice coil gap. I would think any similarly sized dust cap would work, preferably one the same color if you can find it. I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble (and expense) of replacing the entire woofer just because the dust cap was crunched. Unless the speakers are quite valuable.
I think that dust cap is essential in a way that, it performs a midrange duty of some sort. Sorry to not have been clearer but I know this aluminium dustcap IS important.
 
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